Wen Zhengming practiced writing for 70 years, and before he died, he realized the essence of superior brushwork and finally wrote this unique divine work!
Sun Guoting has a famous calligraphy discourse in the "Book Genealogy", which is also widely believed by later generations of calligraphers, representing the growth experience of a mature calligrapher.
This passage is "the beginning of the learning is straight, the pursuit of danger, the return to peace."
This is the same as the Buddhist Zen Buddhism saying that "looking at the mountain is the mountain, seeing the water is the water, seeing the mountain is not the mountain, seeing the water is not the water, looking at the mountain or the mountain, looking at the water or the water" is the same as the state.
It means that learning calligraphy generally has to go through these three stages, from the very beginning of the "fine art character" stage, establishing the concept of flatness, writing the basic dot painting regularly, the second stage, to understand the "change of yin and yang", that is, to integrate the traditional Chinese philosophical concept into calligraphy, calligraphy is also with this "change of yin and yang" began to become emotional, realm, can truly integrate with Chinese culture.
This is also the charm of Chinese calligraphy, if your calligraphy only stays in the stage of "fine art characters", then the essence of these high-quality calligraphy is difficult to understand, and there is still a long way to go from the real traditional Chinese calligraphy. Some contemporary calligraphers have stayed at this stage.
The second stage is to understand what is "dangerous", and to be able to apply this "danger" silently and naturally to their own creations, there are many such works in ancient times, and on the contrary, some calligraphers in the Calligraphy Association, in order to cooperate with this "danger", each word is basically "made", and the real "pursuit of danger" realm, is still far away.
The third stage is "returning to pingzheng", Ouyang Qian's "Jiucheng Palace" and Wang Xizhi's "Seventeen Theses" basically belong to this realm of works, which hide the "dangerous absolute" in the plain, and it is difficult to find its dangerous beauty without careful observation, and this subtlety is difficult to write without sufficient skill.
In the ming dynasty calligraphy circle, there was such a calligrapher, who practiced calligraphy for 70 years, and finally realized the essence of superior brushwork in his later years, and wrote calligraphy to the realm of truth, purity and beauty.
He is Wen Zhengming, Wen Zhengming began to practice characters when he was a teenager, his practice is different from other calligraphers in history, many other calligraphers have walked for many years on the road of exploring penmanship, and even walked through many detours, while Wen Zhengming did not, he learned "penmanship" from Li Yingzhen since he was a child, and after years of calligraphy practice, as well as repeated inspections of Jin and Tang calligraphy, he finally became a generation of masters.
In his later years, Wen Zhengming's calligraphy had already been completed, and he once said in one of his inscriptions that when he went to read the Orchid Pavilion Preface at this time, he found that he could understand the six or seven points of it, and he reached this realm, which took more than seventy years.
When Wen Zhengming was eighty-six years old, he wrote the highest cursive book of his life, "Former Chibi Fu", which was the most skillful work he had written in his life, and in his later years he wrote again, and the wonderful realm was already above the past.
For friends who are learning the "Erwang" one-line calligraphy and want to write beautifully, this WenZhengming's "Former Chibi Fu" is a masterpiece that you can't miss, and this article is very familiar to everyone, memorized several times, and your words have a qualitative leap in a short period of time.
Today, we have carried out an ultra-high-definition 1:1 reproduction of the original work of Wen Zhengming's "Former Chibi Fu" hidden in the Palace Museum in Beijing, with delicate and clear characters for everyone to learn to copy.
To purchase the full volume of the former Chibi Fu, please click "Take a Look" below
Wen ZhengMing's book "Former Chibi Fu"
